Brookwood falls to strong ground game

Saturday

Sep 24, 2011 at 1:04 AMSep 24, 2011 at 1:40 AM

A.A. Moore

BROOKWOOD | With a break this week from region play, Brookwood High School was hoping to establish some momentum heading into a three-week road swing that will determine if the Panthers qualify for the Alabama High School Athletic Association playoffs for the first time since 1998.

But Oak Grove (3-2) never allowed Brookwood (2-3) to get into a rhythm. The Tigers simply ran the ball at will for most of the contest, racking up 355 yards on the ground and scoring on their first five possessions en route to a 41-26 win Friday night at Billy Joe Young Field.

Oak Grove tailback Jimnarrius Furlow ran the ball 39 times for 235 yards and two touchdowns. His 1-yard scoring run with 4:52 left was the final score of the night.

Brookwood had an opportunity to make things interesting at the end, but on third-and-2 at the Oak Grove 6-yard line, a run for a loss was compounded with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that pushed the Panthers way back. Brookwood ultimately turned the ball over on downs.

"In the first half, we just couldn’t slow them down," said Brookwood coach Ricky Bush. "In the second half, we didn’t make any drastic changes. We just played better football."

Brookwood tried to keep pace in the first half. Damion Dent broke a 75-yard touchdown run on the Panthers’ second play from scrimmage and Anthony McCostlin (24 carries, 135 yards) scored twice in the second quarter — the last on a 5-yard run — that made the score 27-18 with 2:48 before halftime. But a James Marquis 3-yard scoring run less than two minutes later helped Oak Grove take a 34-18 halftime lead.

Brookwood’s special teams ran hot and cold against Oak Grove. The Panthers scored two touchdowns in the kicking game, one on a 94-yard kickoff return by Anthony McCostlin in the second quarter, the other on 22-yard fumble recovery by Koran Lewis after Oak Grove had trouble on a punt snap.

The bad came from two missed extra points — one was blocked — and two kickoff returns that were nearly returned for touchdowns in the first half by Furlow.

"The special teams are supposed to be special, and we weren’t very special at times," Bush said.

With a chance to take charge of its playoff destiny in the coming weeks, Dent said his team is going to have to shake off this loss.

"We’ve got to come out and work harder next week. We can’t let this happen again," Dent said.

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